Circus World (1964) No, I'm not here to throw more dirt on the grave of mega-epic producer Samuel Bronston. Through the late 50's and early 60's, Bronston, fueled by American bucks and big breaks from Generalissimo Franco's Spain, pumped out all-star epics like the popular "El Cid" and BQ's own personal favorite "55 Days At Peking".
Bronston set up his own studio in Spain as well, with enough acreage to build massive replicas of Peking for "55 Days" and a vast spectacular Roman Forum for "The Fall Of The Roman Empire". But while the action-packed "El Cid" and "55 Days" rang up the box office, "Roman Empire", a 3 hour turgid, stillborn snooze, flopped dead on arrival in 1964......and it took Bronston's Spanish empire down the drain with it.....
But wait! There's more! (Pardon my infomercial hyperbole). In 1964, only a few months after "Empire" fell, Bronston still released one last genuine popcorn gobblin' crowd pleaser to finish off his reign of epics. Who could resist a circus with John Wayne, lions, tigers, elephants, clowns, trapeze artists, Stagecoach shootouts and the infinitely adorable, vivacious Claudia Cardinale?
I'm not the biggest fan of "Circus World" but it's infinitely more fun and easier to watch than Cecil B. DeMille's grossly over-awarded "The Greatest Show On Earth".....(but yes, we all still love the train wreck scene, the only thing anyone remembers from it, including young Steven Spielberg in "The Fablemans")
Directed efficiently enough by Hollywood war horse Henry Hathaway, it's saddled with a soap opera plot worthy of a Douglas Sirk high glamour weeper. John Wayne's big top impresario Matt Masters takes his combo circus-Wild West show on an ill-advised European tour,. He's hoping to re-connect with his long lost love, high wire-trapeze star Lili Alfredo (Rita Hayworth). Lili fled into obscurity after her romantic dalliance with Matt drove her husband to suicide........and for extra soap bubbles, she left behind daughter Toni (Claudia Cardinale), whom Matt raised as a stand-in Dad, without ever telling the kid about her famous mom.
Now let BQ rest a moment and contemplate how much we despise having to outline overly complicated movie plots........okay, I'm rested, let's move on to the cool stuff....
Samuel Bronston never failed to deliver spectacle to any of his projects......(not that it helped "The Fall Of The Roman Empire", whose audiences mostly viewed that one in deep slumber).
Therefore 'Circus World' is bookended by two Bronston-ized showstoppers, but it's really only the first one that sticks in my memory.......the big circus boat that tips over with all hands (and performers) on deck. (While the boat's docked in Italy, an on board publicity stunt goes awry with a performer plunging into the water. And everyone on the boat unwisely rushes to one side of it to see what's going on.....ooopsie, perhaps this crowd of rubberneckers was unfamiliar with gravity....)
What's cool about it (and something you'll never see done in today's bloated CGI era)......the entire sequence (much like the upending of the main salon in Irwin Allen's original "Poseidon Adventure") is staged for real, with hundreds of stunt people and extras taking a unwanted dive into the harbor..)
As per usual BQ procedure, I wouldn't waste my time (or yours) describing the unfolding plot in the bulk of the film......(of course Rita Hayworth returns to the circus, touching off all sorts of melodramatic yada yada yada...)
Let's just cut right to the literally fiery finale, with the circus tent ablaze, accomplished with mostly standard, thoroughly unconvincing special effects. Cue the necessary, required heroics and. "Circus World" literally folds its tent (or what's left of it)......
But rest assured, not even a capsized boat and a raging fire can stop John Wayne's lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Unfortunately for Samuel Bronston, a capsized "Roman Empire" finally put an end to the Bronston 3 ring circus of gigantic historical epics. Damn shame too, since the next one up was supposedly "The French Revolution". (I could almost picture Bronston constructing the Palace of Versailles in his Spanish back lot.......
And I'm not ashamed to admit I pine a little for these films....... and for ballsy moguls like Bronston who weren't afraid to roll the dice on making such grandiose movies. True enough, some worked, some didn't, but sure as hell not for lack trying.......
"Circus World" was far from the best of them, but certainly not the worst way to finish off a long gone brand of splashy, colorful showmanship.....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)
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